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Ugandan high freight charges scaling down fish exports
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Uganda's fish processors had their best performance last year, exporting $143.6 million worth of fish. However, the country’s high freight charges and Lake Victoria's receding waters are threatening to take away these gains. According to the Uganda Fish Processors and Exporters Association, a number of Ugandan fish processors have resorted to transporting fish by road from Kampala to Nairobi to beat the high freight charges out of
Entebbe.
The organisation's chief executive, Ovia Matovu, said that freight charges for fish from Entebbe Airport to European markets peak at $2.2 per kilogramme compared with an average of $1.6 per kg at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. "There are so many problems cropping up at the same time. The high price of electricity and the receding lake levels, are disrupting supplies of raw fish, and have combined to impact negatively on the cost of production, forcing processors to become innovative." |
Since more cargo flights out of Nairobi have pushed freight charges to as low as $1.30 per kg of fish to European markets, and with trucking fees costing only 12 to 20 cents per kg, even when based on the lowest rack rate of $1.95 per kg out of Entebbe, processors who ferry their exports by road to Nairobi can save from 45 to 53 cents per kilo. That translates into an outright profit of $4,500 to $5,300 for every 10 tonnes exported, which is good money given the thin margins on fish.
According to export figures for 2005, Uganda was exporting 704 tonnes of fish per week, translating into a cargo volume of 100 tonnes or one and half large freighters daily. But performance dipped during the first six months of this year, with only 636 tonnes per week. And of this volume, only 30 per cent is chilled fish fillet which must as a rule be transported by air because it is time sensitive. It is understood that the trucks leave Kampala at 2.00 am, getting to Nairobi in time for late afternoon
departures.
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